Chinese Central Asia: A Ride to Little Tibet
1894 · New York
by LANSDELL, Henry
New York: Charles Scribner's Son, 1894. FIRST AMERICAN. With 3 maps (1 detached) and 80 illustrations. Tightly rebound in modern blue cloth with original decorated publisher's cloth on cover, gilt spine; text is remarkably clean. From the Forbes Library in Northampton, Massachusetts with their perforated stamp on title. First American edition of a captivating and elaborate travelogue detailing the author's last major journey through Asia, traveling from London to Tibet. The intended purpose of the journey was to scout out new lands for missionary purposes, with the additional objective of gaining entrance to the Tibetan capital, Lhasa; ultimately, they failed due to the stressed Anglo-Tibetan relations, but Lansdell still saw fit to call the mission a "successful failure" (Vol II, p. 405). In this work, and its precursors, the author traverses a large portion of Asiatic Russia and China, much of which was previously unexplored and undocumented, making this a valuable and significant contribution to the study of Asiatic culture. In addition to making observations about Oriental culture, commerce, customs and manners, and religious rites, Lansdell also includes a chronology of Central Asia, a catalogue of various flora and fauna collected during the journey, and a large bibliography of works related to Chinese Central Asia.
Lansdell (1841-1919), a British clergyman, missionary, and ardent explorer, traversed nearly all of Europe and much of Russia, Asia, and Siberia by the time of his death. His extensive travels saw him elected to the Royal Asiatic Society, the Royal Geographical Society, and the British Association for the Advancement of Science. "A 'so-called missionary,' rather scathingly dismissed by many of his compatriots, a man who blazed a trail for countless subsequent great travellers and explorers, as well as many other anonymous pilgrims, lamas, and guides, Henry Lansdell's spiritual journeys through Asiatic Russia may be reconsidered today as a successful personal endeavour into the imperial oriental borderland . . . His direct contacts across the social and cultural boundaries of the Russian and Chinese empires, separating colonisers and colonised, Westerners and non-Westerners, were far more than exercises in imperial administration or ethnography. His writings represent the colonial 'Other' from a specific vantage point, where elements of tolerance and mutual understanding emerged alongside intolerance and domination" (Kantarbaeva-Bill, pp. 41-42). (Inventory #: 15246)
Lansdell (1841-1919), a British clergyman, missionary, and ardent explorer, traversed nearly all of Europe and much of Russia, Asia, and Siberia by the time of his death. His extensive travels saw him elected to the Royal Asiatic Society, the Royal Geographical Society, and the British Association for the Advancement of Science. "A 'so-called missionary,' rather scathingly dismissed by many of his compatriots, a man who blazed a trail for countless subsequent great travellers and explorers, as well as many other anonymous pilgrims, lamas, and guides, Henry Lansdell's spiritual journeys through Asiatic Russia may be reconsidered today as a successful personal endeavour into the imperial oriental borderland . . . His direct contacts across the social and cultural boundaries of the Russian and Chinese empires, separating colonisers and colonised, Westerners and non-Westerners, were far more than exercises in imperial administration or ethnography. His writings represent the colonial 'Other' from a specific vantage point, where elements of tolerance and mutual understanding emerged alongside intolerance and domination" (Kantarbaeva-Bill, pp. 41-42). (Inventory #: 15246)